The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute are publishing daily updates to provide analysis on the war with Iran. The updates cover events from the past 24-hour period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Toplines<\/p>\n
The structure of the newly established \u201cdeconfliction cell\u201d to oversee the ceasefire in Lebanon appears to constrain Israeli action against Hezbollah by eliminating the post-2024 ceasefire monitoring mechanism, which allowed Israel to act against Hezbollah ceasefire violations in certain circumstances. Iran secured a number of gains from the quadrilateral talks with the United States, Qatar, and Pakistan in Switzerland on June 21. One of these gains includes the establishment of a \u201cdeconfliction cell\u201d to oversee the ceasefire in Lebanon that excludes Israel and appears to replace a previous monitoring mechanism that enabled Israeli operations in Lebanon under the November 2024 ceasefire.[1] The new mechanism includes the United States, Iran, Qatar, the Lebanese government, and Pakistan. The previous mechanism, often referred to as the \u201cceasefire monitoring committee,\u201d enabled Israel to conduct operations against Hezbollah and degrade the threat Hezbollah posed to Israel following Israel\u2019s defeat of Hezbollah in 2024.[2] This mechanism included Israel, Lebanon, the United States, France, and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).[3] Israel, under this mechanism, reported Hezbollah ceasefire violations to the mechanism in order for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to address the violations.[4] Israel took action to neutralize the Hezbollah threats with force when the LAF failed to address or insufficiently addressed the Hezbollah violations, which frequently occurred.[5] Israeli media reported that the newly agreed-upon mechanism between the United States, Iran, Qatar, and Pakistan is designed to replace the former ceasefire monitoring committee. It is unclear how the newly established deconfliction cell will function. The disempowerment of the former mechanism in favor of a new \u201cdeconfliction cell\u201d that excludes Israel nonetheless benefits Iran because it removes a recognized forum in which Israel raised Hezbollah violations and acted against them if necessary. Both Iran and Hezbollah could materially benefit from a constrained Israeli ability to confront Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
The inclusion of Iran and exclusion of Israel in the \u201cdeconfliction cell\u201d will seriously challenge the cell\u2019s ability to achieve its stated objective of ensuring the \u201ctermination of military operations\u201d in Lebanon.[6] Both actors are actively involved in combat operations in southern Lebanon. Iran reportedly deployed Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officers to Maroun al Ras to help coordinate Hezbollah\u2019s defense against Israel Defense Forces (IDF) advances in southern Lebanon, according to a senior Israeli source speaking to regional media on June 22.[7] These IRGC deployments are consistent with recent reports that IRGC officers have embedded themselves in Hezbollah\u2019s command structure in order to rebuild the group following Hezbollah\u2019s defeat in Fall 2024.[8] The IDF continues to operate against Hezbollah on the ground in southeastern Lebanon.[9] Iran\u2019s involvement in the conflict will enable it to directly relay intelligence and information from southern Lebanon to the \u201cdeconfliction cell.\u201d Israel will only be able to indirectly relay information to the \u201cdeconfliction cell\u201d via the United States, however. Israel was previously able to directly raise issues to the November 2024 monitoring mechanism.[10]<\/p>\n
The conflicting positions of the deconfliction cell\u2019s member states will also challenge the mechanism\u2019s ability to secure an end to military operations in Lebanon. The United States is reportedly allowing Israel to maintain a military presence in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli media citing Israeli sources.\u00a0 Right-wing Israeli media reported on June 22 that Israeli and US officials have agreed that the IDF will remain in southern Lebanon for an unspecified period of time to continue clearing Hezbollah infrastructure in areas within the IDF\u2019s military buffer zone.[11] Left-leaning Israeli media reports indicated on June 21 that the IDF is considering \u201ca symbolic withdrawal\u201d from areas of southern Lebanon beyond the Yellow Line \u2014 which refers to the extent of the IDF\u2019s \u201csecurity zone\u201d in Lebanon\u2014as a gesture to the Lebanese government.[12] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz continue to insist that Israel has the right to protect itself and that this includes maintaining a presence in southern Lebanon to combat Hezbollah and conduct clearing operations.[13] Iran continues to demand a full ceasefire that includes a complete IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon, however.[14] Israeli, US, and Lebanese delegations will probablydiscuss the scope of Israeli military operations in Lebanon and the new \u201cdeconfliction cell\u201d in Israel-Lebanon ceasefire talks in Washington, DC, between June 23 and 25.[15]<\/p>\n
Iran has also secured economic relief through a US Treasury Department sanctions waiver for Iranian oil and petrochemical exports and a reported Iran-Qatar memorandum of understanding (MoU) that facilitates the unfreezing of Iranian assets. The US Treasury Department issued a waiver on June 22 for Iranian crude oil and petrochemical exports through August 21. The waiver includes associated services such as banking transactions, insurance, and transportation. The waiver does not apply to Iranian exports to North Korea, Cuba, and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.[16] The United States had already committed to the sanctions waiver as part of the US-Iran MoU that the United States and Iran signed on June 17.[17] Iranian media separately reported that Iran and Qatar signed a separate MoU for Qatar to unfreeze Iranian assets.[18] Qatar has not acknowledged this claim as of this writing. US Vice President JD Vance told reporters on June 22 that Iran would use unfrozen funds to purchase US agricultural products if the United States unfroze the funds.[19] Iranian media subsequently denied Vance\u2019s comments, however.[20]<\/p>\n
Iran does not appear to have made any nuclear concessions in the June 21 talks in Switzerland. Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters on June 22 that both the US and Iranian delegations expressed their countries\u2019 views on Iran\u2019s nuclear program but did not negotiate on their positions during the June 21 talks.[21] Baghaei reiterated that the United States must fulfill other MoU clauses, such as the ceasefire on all fronts and economic relief clauses, in order to \u201cpave the way for the implementation of mutual obligations.\u201d Baghaei was likely referencing negotiations about Iran\u2019s nuclear program, which is consistent with how Iran is attempting to condition nuclear talks on economic relief and the United States compelling Israel to end operations and withdraw from Lebanon.[22] US President Donald Trump suggested on June 22 that Iran will have to agree to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of nuclear sites.[23] Baghaei denied that Iran has made any \u201cnew commitments\u201d over IAEA inspections and said that Iran\u2019s interactions with the IAEA would remain under Iran\u2019s existing legal frameworks, however.[24]<\/p>\n
The US and Iranian delegations agreed on June 21 to establish a line of communication to prevent military incidents in the Strait of Hormuz as commercial vessels transit through the strait.[25] Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-affiliated media claimed on June 21 that this line of communication \u2014 which appears to be designed mainly to avoid maritime incidents or miscommunication \u2014 establishes Iran\u2019s sovereignty over the strait.[26] The regime may assess that this line of communication will require vessels to coordinate with Iran in order to safely pass through the strait and thereby implicitly recognize Iran\u2019s sovereignty over the strait. Commercially available maritime data indicates that 25 vessels passed through the strait between 1400 ET on June 21 and 1400 ET on June 22, despite Iranian claims on June 20 that it had closed the strait due to Israeli \u201cviolations\u201d of the ceasefire in Lebanon.[27]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-508147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}